Antidote
by wneleh
Summary: Napoleon looks awful in the dimly-lit room, pale face slightly elevated above even paler sheets, a tube running into one arm. Carrying the fluids hospitals love, and the alleged antidote, and something else entirely to counteract the nasty chemistry that occurs when poison meets poison.


The New York City water supply? Now safe, or at least no more vulnerable than it had been the week before.

The criminal organization that had endeavored to hold the entire city hostage, for a sum never quite determined? Dismantled, and, Illya understands, mostly in custody or dead, though he and Napoleon had been responsible for very little of the cleanup.

Gaby? Driving back from Upstate, as they call it. Presumably she'll find them at some point, but Illya (selfishly, he knows) hopes that she will not come until after – after whatever is going to happen, happens.

His own emotions are load enough at present.

Himself? Oh, fine, he is fine, the chemist's needle hadn't even penetrated his jacket.

But Napoleon?

The doctors think they know the compound, from the sample on your clothing, Waverly had said. They think we know the antidote. They think they started administering it in time.

But they do not know?

He will deteriorate for a few more hours; then he will get better, or he will not. But he's at the finest hospital in the richest country in the world. He will get the best possible care.

Illya does not think those three statements necessarily go together. He does not share this with Mr. Waverly.

And now he's standing outside room 611 in the best hallway of the best hospital in the best country, a hallway which glistens, which is bisected by not one but three colored lines, a ribbon of orange, green, and purple to help the hapless get to – Illya can't imagine. The washroom? The x-ray machine?

How many x-ray machines would such a place have? One for every day of the week?

And a third line to take you to the coffee pot?

Illusions to make one think they knew what they were doing here. When in fact they couldn't keep a man who'd strode through their automatic doors under his own power (Waverly had said) just four hours ago from succumbing to a tiny dose of liquid, inexpertly delivered.

Does he know? he'd asked Waverly.

He knows.

Don't go up there, Waverly had said. Leave him some dignity.

The door to 611 opens, and a nurse steps out, crisp white uniform sustaining the illusion. "Mr. Kuryakin? We were told you might come up," she says. "We've cleaned him up. I think he's stable for now."

"Are your drugs working?"

"He's young and strong… We're doing everything we can for him. He'll be fully awake for just a little while longer…"

"I understand," he says. Lying.

* * *

Napoleon looks awful in the dimly-lit room, pale face slightly elevated above even paler sheets, a tube running into one arm. Carrying the fluids hospitals love, and the alleged antidote, and something else entirely to counteract the nasty chemistry that occurs when poison meets poison.

Six hours ago, Napoleon had swung an expert right hook at a stick-thin chemist, obviously holding back enough power to keep from killing a useful witness. Illya had nodded that he hadn't been stuck; Napoleon had shrugged that he had been. Then the momentum of the situation had spread them apart – and things had happened, which Illya had dutifully recounted to Waverly and his stenographer, and now he was here.

Staring at Napoleon.

"Who should I call?" Illya asks. Please let there be someone.

"Nobody," Napoleon answers, in a voice no louder than a breath.

Of course there wasn't.

"Leave," Napoleon says, with slightly more force. "You don't want to be here."

An interesting presumption. "Well, neither do you," he feels compelled to point out.

Napoleon smiles faintly at this. "Go home."

"I cannot leave," says Illya - because why? "Because I am not really here," he continues. "I am, in fact, just entering the cinema. I am seeing Mary Poppins."

"You couldn't – do better?"

"The other choices seemed too foolish or too grim."

He grabs the only chair at hand and pulls it to the side of Napoleon's bed, then sits, considering his partner.

"Since I am seeing Mary Poppins, you will have to forgive me if I am singing its tunes next week…"

No, this was ridiculous. He is horrible at chatter, and this is not what Napoleon, waiting, friendless, needs.

"Since I am not here," Illya says, "I am not doing this."

And so their first kiss brings Illya's too-cracked lips down to Napoleon's, much too cold. Napoleon now opens them for Illya, but his eyes are clenched shut, to stifle any spilling of emotion. "Shhh," Napoleon says, "I am not here. This is not happening," and he kisses him once more, then pulls back a little but grips Napoleon's hand.

"Rest," he says. "When you open your eyes next, I will still not be here."

"Okay," Napoleon breaths, eyes still tightly closed but no longer quite so desperately. "Okay."

THE END


End file.
